He grinned suddenly, taking her breath away. “Can you?”
“Damn, Brooker,” she said, gulping for air. “But you know we have to discuss your Texan and your vigilantes and—”
“Later.”
She smiled. “That’s what I was saying. We have to discuss them later.”
He caught an arm around her waist, and she fell back onto her skinny roll mat, taking him with her, relishing the heat of his body. She clasped her hands behind his back, under his shirt, and if they were still icy, he didn’t complain, just found her mouth again, kissing her as he felt for the buttons on her shirt. He missed one and ended up ripping it off—it ricocheted off his belt buckle and disappeared.
“Friday night wasn’t a mistake,” he said. “I never should have let you think it was.”
“That made it easier for me. Both of us.”
He kissed her again. The contrast of the cold night air and his hot mouth, his warm body, made her hyper-aware of her surroundings, the moment. The dark tent, the owl, the shadows, the brush of his soft shirt against her breasts. She grabbed at his shirt with both hands, but a jolt of reality stopped her from tearing it off him—what if it was his only shirt? There’d be no explaining a torn shirt to her brothers.
So she undid the remaining buttons one by one, painstaking in her efforts, and Ethan let her, but his breathing grew ragged by the time she finished and pulled the shirt off his shoulders. She could see the outline of the black graphic tattoo on his upper arm, the shape of the muscles in his shoulders and arms.
He groaned at her. “Juliet.”
She cast the shirt aside and smiled. “Serves you right for torturing me.”
“You’re a little breathless there yourself, Juliet.”
“I love the way you say my name. It doesn’t come out like that when anyone else says it. I think it’s the accent—”
“Juliet,” he whispered. “Juliet, Juliet, Juliet. I’ll say your name anytime you want.”
He rolled onto his back, taking her with him. The sleeping bag twisted around her, but she managed to push it off her, no longer minding the cold air. He smoothed his palms up her stomach and over her breasts, and she fell onto him, the last of their clothes off in seconds, coming together in a frenzy of heat and raw, open need.
“Ethan—” She didn’t care that she couldn’t breathe. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. You’re perfect just as you are.”
Grabbing her hips, he pulled her harder onto him, thrust deeper into her. “I’m not perfect.”
“Perfect for me.”
She hadn’t meant to reveal that kind of emotion, but the words were out, and she was exposed, to herself and to him. He seemed to sense her unease and he held them both still for a moment. The owl hooting, the night suddenly seeming darker, colder. “It’s okay.” He skimmed his hands up her arms and caught his fingers in her hair, bringing her face closer to his own. “I’m not going to get scared and run away because you’re in love with me.”
“I’m not—”
He smiled, kissing her. “You repressed Yankees.”
She placed her palms on his shoulders and raised herself off him, moving in such a way he had no choice but to suck in a breath. She grinned. “I thought that’d shut you up.” And when he responded, quickening his pace, she cried out in surprise, unable to focus on anything but the feel of him inside her, the release that was building in every cell of her body. When it came, she felt him moving with her, timing his own to coincide with hers, until they both collapsed, breathing hard, the sleeping bag shoved at their feet.
“Hey, Marshal.” He dragged a finger across her back. “You’re sweating.”
Juliet reached for the sleeping bag, pulling it over them both as best she could. “We’ll be freezing our butts off once our heart rates slow down.” She snuggled against him, his heart beating rapidly, every inch of him toasty warm. “Although I think the temperature would have to get below zero to make you shiver.”
“If I start shivering, I’ll find a way to warm up.” He kissed the top of her head, then held her close. “Sweet dreams.”
“You’re a complicated man, Ethan,” she said.
He didn’t answer her, just found her hand in the dark, intertwining his fingers with hers as she closed her eyes.
Sixteen
Mia crossed her arms over her chest to ward off the cold out on the street behind her hotel. She’d slipped into jeans and a blouse but hadn’t bothered with a jacket. She’d done her graduate work at Columbia—she was comfortable in New York. But not in the middle of the night, not for the reasons she’d left her warm bed and her third movie of the night. She’d known she wouldn’t be sleeping before she saw the FBI and the marshals in the morning, but she hadn’t expected a jaunt outside.
“You want to meet me? Be outside your hotel in twenty minutes. Back entrance.”
How, how, how—how had he known she was in New York? How had he known what hotel she was in?